Page 510 of Savage Bosses

“She’s beautiful,” Brynlee says, turning to me.

“Thank you.”

She looks at Cee-Cee for a long time before she says, “She looks just like you.”

I see the heartache in her eyes, and though I don’t regret my daughter, I regret the heartache I sent Brynlee through all those years ago.

“Who is she, Daddy?”

I turn to see my daughter watching me closely. Sighing, I walk to my desk and reply, “An old friend.”

“FWB?”

“What the hell do you know about that?”

“It’s what Mama and Greg and Mama and Colt are.”

Fury runs through my veins, and I shake my head. “You’re learning too much with your mother.”

Shrugging, she replies, “Gotta learn eventually.”

“Not that way. And no, she was…more than that.”

“You loved her?”

It’s not curiosity but hope in my daughter’s voice that makes me take the risk.

“Yeah.”

“She loved you?”

“Yeah.”

She smiles for the first time in a long time. “You deserve to be loved, Daddy.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I am.”

“Does she make you happy?”

“She does.”

“Then you should marry her.”

Laughing, I say, “I wish it were that easy.”

“It can be. You make everything else happen, make that happen.”

The logic of a child. If only.

CHAPTER 6

Brynlee

M